Romantic Circles Gallery
Gallery Editors:
Theresa M. KelleyJacob Leveton
 This image portrays an icescape with distant mountains. The Arctic sun is low on the horizon, and smoke-like clouds extend in a widening mass from the far right of the image to the upper left corner... Delineator: Back, Sir George 1836 |
 Engraver: Daniell, Thomas 1795 |
 This foldout guide to the "Moving Diorama of Venice" is divided into three large panels showing a series of "highlight" views of Venice, as if seen from a passing gondola. Ignoring the distance that... 1841 |
 This image depicts the Battle of Lodi. The French army takes up the forefront and majority of the image. There is a distinct gap between the Austrians and the French on the bridge, further clarifying... Delineator: Cruikshank, George 10 May 1823 |
 Elizabeth Gunning sits astride a cannon in the front foreground of the print, the skirt of a golden dress flying toward her face and revealing her legs and undergarments, her arms thrown open and... Delineator: Gillray, James 5 March 1791 |
 Here, on one of the four engraved and hand-colored pages interspersed among the blank pages of the Floral Album, the engraver has pictured a wreath of flowers formed from pink roses, blue... |
 The façade of a brick structure—with a sidewall jutting out to form a kind of corner—and a tree with a serpentine trunk take up the right half of the oval-shaped image. Light shining through the... 1800 |
 “Plate II” presents two figures, both of which refer to a sedan-chair style camera obscura in which a person can comfortably sit. Figure 7 is a view of the interior of this alternative camera obscura... 1803 |
 A young man, seated with a long rifle on a rock, wears a dark jacket and light trousers. A horn is strung around his neck and a brimmed hat lies at his side. He is addressed by a woman with a large... 1807 |
 This political caricature depicts Queen Caroline as a puppet of her lover Bartolomeo Pergami (aka Bergami). Dorothy George describes the print as follows: Bergami, mustachioed, whiskered... 17 February 1821 |
 In the corner of a room, five men examine the paintings hung on the two visible walls. On the right, a coarse figure identified at Mr. Mortimer, an art dealer and restorer, spits on one of the... 16 November 1807 |
 Cutting a nearly perfect diagonal across the picture plane from the top left corner, the ruins of the Temple of Peace, or Basilica of Maxentius, loom large on the canvas, casting a shadow on the... 1779 |
 A single large pyramid stands covered in vegetation, crowned by a small, exposed temple. The pyramid is surrounded by a variety of trees and bushes, and is fronted by a small clearing. Two men stand... Delineator: Norman, Benjamin Moore 1843 |
 The Grand West Entrance to Jedburgh Abbey is at the perfect center of the composition. The sequence of intricately carved arches framing the comparatively small, rectangular door creates a tunneling... 19 September 1846 |
 The engraving depicts the lower room of the “Old Ashmolean” building at the University of Oxford. Various natural specimens, including a giraffe and a dodo, are evident, as well as two groups of... Delineator: Delamotte, William Alfred 1 December 1834 |
 This image presents the same view as the first in the gallery, with some alterations (the over-slip attached to the illustration constituted by these two images has been lifted). We still have a view... Collaborator: Repton, John Adey 1 February 1816 |
 Dr. Syntax is in the center of the print, sitting on an overturned washtub and drawing in his sketchbook. In front of him to the left are a bevy of farm animals, including Syntax’s own donkey,... 1 May 1812 |
 The image depicts a broad, flat plain, interrupted at its further end by a grey body of water. In the distance, a low mountain range looms in vague, dark contours against the sky, nearly touching the... 1792 |
 This illustration depicts a rough image of Earth, which is shown floating in black space that grows misty near the edges. Europe is white, while everything "east," as well as Australia, is colored a... 1839 |
 An obese and rosy Lady Emma Hamilton in a white nightgown and nightcap sits up in her bed with arms and legs splayed outward, pushing the sea-foam green curtains of the canopy back. Her gaze is... Delineator: Gillray, James 6 February 1802 |
 The top image ("Fig. 1") depicts a brick, believed to be taken from the Tower of Babel. "Fig. 2" and "Fig. 3" each depict a canopic jar, or "canopus"; these were vases used by the ancient Egyptians... 1791 |
 The ruins of Goodrich Castle sit perched on a hill near the center of the piece. Three boats full of people, ostensibly tourists, row down the river which bends sharply to the left. The central hill... 1785 |
 A crew rows their boat away from the viewer and towards the mouth of a river in lightly choppy seas. A man standing in back steers with the rudder oar. A sand beach extends on the left, while bluffs... Delineator: Back, Sir George 1836 |
 A phrenologist lectures to a seated audience. The writing below the print identifies the phrenologist as James De Ville; however, M. George posits that the phrenologist is George Combe (George 606).... Delineator: Lump, J. September 1826 |
 c. 1829 |
 Dr. Syntax falls backward off his rocky seat into the water. Though his hat has fallen into the water, he still clutches his pen and journal: he has evidently been sketching the moss-covered ruins of... 1 May 1812 |
 The subject, Chepstow Castle, dominates most of the print, sitting across the water from the viewer. It is in a state of ruin: ivy climbs up the towers, and the tops of the rightmost towers are... Delineator: Cooper, Robert Bransby 1813 |
 A man sits while a woman examines his head. The right side of the image shows a mapped skull placed on a table. 1826 |
 The two remaining towers of Hadleigh Castle stand in the left register of the picture plane. A single scrawny tree grows between the decaying stone edifices. The surrounding hillside is completely... Engraver: Lucas, David 1830 |
 The art historian Pramod Chandra describes this miniature as follows:
[T]he man, seated on a chair, listens to a group of musicians squatting on a striped blue carpet. He is attended by... 1870 |
 c. 1790s |
 1778 |
 This image uses scientific diagrams to depict sound waves and vibrational patterns. The specific phenomena depicted by the various figures and the import of these depictions are discussed at length... 1800 |
 John Auldjo, the artist himself, stands on the far right of the image, poking the lava with a cane and holding a cloth over his mouth. In the background, the eruption of Vesuvius’ small cone, Monte... 1845 |
 A large stone stela, facing forward, depicts a Maya deity decorated with myriad visual embellishments, its fists clenched upon its chest. The background depicts the small clearing in which the stela... Delineator: Catherwood, Frederick 1841 |
 "Fig. 1" depicts a piece of coral shaped like a hand, while figure "2" features a glass tumbler that appears partially petrified. 1791 |
 c. 1819-20 |
 c. Early 19th century |
 This plate from George Adams II’s An Essay on Vision illustrates his camera obscura model of vision, as well as several optical experiments proposed in the book. The figures are described... Delineator: Milne, T. 31 July 1789 |
 The image shows a man lying on a bed, his hands folded in a gesture of prayer. He faces the upper left corner of the picture, where two angels descend towards him on a stream of light. In front of... 1816 |
 This image depicts an icescape in fog. The immediate foreground features a prominent rock jutting out of the ground to the left, next to what appears to be a large vertebra. The center portion of the... Delineator: Back, Sir George 1836 |
 This image depicts the Governor's House at Uxmal: it is a single-story, stone-brick building, lightly covered in vegetation and elevated upon a stone-brick platform. A variety of Mexican flora... Delineator: Norman, Benjamin Moore 1843 |
 "Plate 57" features seven illustrations to accompany Book III of A Compleat System of Opticks, which describes the science behind a variety of optical and image-making machines, including a... 1738 |
 Twelve portraits are given in this collection of figures: the second features a woman and two children, while the rest are individual portraits. The members of the dinner party, many portrayed... Editor: à Beckett, Gilbert Abbott 1845 |
 1824 |
 This image, Plate 13 of Bell's illustrations, depicts the ear without the skin. The numbers and their labels are given below: 1830s |
 Lady Cecilia Johnstone is in profile, seated on a large golden chamber pot. Her brow is slightly furrowed and her gaze intensely focused. She rests her chin in her hand, her elbow propped upon her... Delineator: Gillray, James 19 September 1791 |
 1826 |
 360.—Richmond Castle, from the River Swale, placed in the bottom left corner of page eighty nine, depicts the castle as seen from the banks of the Swale river. A bridge extends from the... Editor: Knight, Charles c. Early 19th century |
 "A light-filled cleft in the clouds divides the image in two; its impact is made the greater by the blue-grey mass to its left. This is the true subject of the study, one of the 'large climbing... 1822 |
